Prime Minister Edi Rama is paying a working visit to Slovenia today to participate in the 20th International Conference of the Bled Strategic Forum, as well as in a series of related events within the Forum’s framework.
For the past two decades, the Bled Strategic Forum has served as a high-level platform for strategic dialogue on the most pressing challenges facing Europe and the wider world.
The 2025 Forum, held under the theme “A Runaway World”, brings together leaders, experts, and visionaries to examine Europe’s role in shaping a more sustainable and cooperative future. Through strategic dialogue and innovative ideas, the conference addresses key challenges such as strengthening global governance, advancing strategic sovereignty, and building trust in an increasingly polarized international environment.
Prime Minister Rama was invited as a special guest in the discussion on the role of states and the future of the European Union, moderated by Stjepan Oresković, entrepreneur, President and Founder of IEDC Bled, Future 500 (International Executive Development Center).
* * *
Stjepan Oresković, entrepreneur and President of IEDC Bled, Future 500:
Your Excellency, Prime Minister, thank you for joining us.
Something that I think is important for everyone in the room for the various reasons. When you read Draghi’s report, it’s a good document, but reading it carefully, you would find two things inside, and usually the most important things are those that are missing. What is missing is the report does not mention a single time the word entrepreneur, and then another topic, the report mentions only once Central and Eastern Europe.
Central and Eastern Europe was in the last ten years the strongest engine of growth, outpacing other parts of Europe double, two times. So when I was listening to you all these years, reading and following, and we met first in 2005 in your office when you became a mayor, I was always wondering why politicians and also countries from Central and Eastern Europe are so submissive when talking with Brussels and with big powers.
You are the example of not being submissive. I was sometimes wondering this guy would never enter in the EU because of how he talks with the Brussels. So, can you comment on that first?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Well, it’s a quite complex question you put me. I want to say that when it comes to us and to me representing my country, it’s a bit different because, for example, if the Slovenian prime minister would say whatever he thinks about Brussels, I don’t know exactly what he thinks, by the way, but whatever he thinks, he has a lot to lose. We don’t. And so we have to be very open and, on the other hand, beyond what we say and beyond what we express, our loyalty is never questioned, because we have a clear idea of our size, of our weight, and also of our challenges.
So as Europeans, we want to be free and we want to express freely what we think. But then when it comes to following Europe, we are very, very loyal followers, and by the way, for example, our foreign policy is 100 percent aligned with the EU foreign policy since ages. And we have never wavered and never even questioned because we are somehow blind when it comes to loyalty. And we have been so with everyone, with the Ottomans, with the Soviets.
So, I want to believe that the report saw Europe as a whole and didn’t want to separate. I want to believe, but maybe I’m wrong. So I think that the bottom line when it comes to this initiative of yours and to our relation with the entrepreneurs in general in Europe and in our country, there is a problem in two layers, I guess.
First is always the problem of looking at the entrepreneurs, not like complementary, but like contradictory to what the state and what the government has to do, and the second layer, which is even more problematic and more dangerous for the future, is that unlike in the United States or in other realities, we are not used in Europe to have an entrepreneurial state.
So, basically we are all about more money from the budget, more spending, more debt, more money, more spending, more debt, more money, more spending, and when there is not much to do with the debt, then we are blocked. Instead, we have to do everything to give to the institutions, the ministries, the whole executive power the message that they also have to behave in an entrepreneurial way, and they have to join the entrepreneurs and together make money for them, for their own interests and the institutions for the public interests.
Stjepan Oresković: I couldn’t agree more, because if you look, China and the United States, it’s a kind of different story. They are our competitors, but it’s the same story. Entrepreneurs and scientists are the guys that are the most important, unless the president doesn’t like them.
We had a dinner with Marta Kos yesterday night, and she was mentioning Albania as one of real favourites to join EU very soon. It was Chatham House Rules, so let me not quote when, but it’s definitely very soon. So briefly, what would you bring to the table as Albania?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Well, you could quote when, because at the end, Marta wants to do it, but let’s hope that the others will agree with Marta when the moment comes, and this is not obvious because at the end of the day, Europe is like a patient with 27 doctors, all pathologists, by the way, which makes it even more complicated to address the problems in every organ. So I would say to everyone that is within the European Union to try and be more happy because it’s a very good place, everyone is. And for sure, the problems in Europe are not related to the fact that Europe is a union, but to the fact that the union needs to be stronger and that many things have to change. So the pathologists have to a bit specialise, and then one should be the cardiologist, one should be the, God forbid, oncologist, and so on and so further. So, to have a whole union that takes care very well of the whole body of the patient, otherwise it will be an unavoidable decline.
Stjepan Oresković: Yeah, we would definitely love to see both you and Albania in Brussels and in EU. I was watching my wife when, he was commenting about marriage and EU because she’s my partner in the company. And I think she agrees, but our marriage is better than EU.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Because she’s part of the company. Being in the company and in the marriage makes the company better and the marriage better because when you want to escape marriage, you go to the company, when you leave the company you go to the marriage. Imagine to be in a marriage, you are in the company, she’s at home.
Stjepan Oresković: I would end up being without company and without marriage.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: But… You are the best example for Europe. To be all together and to be all entrepreneurial.
Stjepan Oresković: Thank you. That’s a good formula.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: The main problem of Europe is what direction it will take. It will deepen its own way of becoming the United States of Europe or it will split in many little parts and then everyone will choose whose satellite to become. Because there is no chance that splitting and getting out of that big club to have some glorious story than just to become the satellite of others. So this is a big question that I don’t have the answer.
On the other hand, Europe is the most incredible machine of bureaucracy and of administration, which can be a good thing. But on the other hand, the overproduction of regulations before even something starts. So, in America, they invent the open AI and in Europe, they invent the regulation when someone will come and dare to go in the same direction. So this practically makes Europe much more difficult as an environment for business, much more articulated when it comes in terms of regulation. But it’s a balance that Europe should find.
The last thing I want to say is that when you see this world growing and moving in a very fast speed outside of our European realm, you really wonder why Europe is not there, why Europe was not in Tianjin, why Europe is not in Brazil. I mean, I understand why, but maybe this answer should be prepared in a different way because the fact that we have different opinions about the way of living is not a reason to close off and to say, if you want to become our friend, you have to live like us. Because like that, we risk to have less and less friends and at the end, to even lose our way of living.
So, we need to preserve our way of living with pride and with all we can, but to be much more open to the world and to be what Europe has always been, the crossroads of where everyone wanted to pass by, not a castle where you are seen through many, many filters to even have the chance of friendship. We can be friends without being strategic allies for future wars. And this will avoid even wars because turning Europe from a project of peace in a project of war, I don’t think is really the way, because being 27 states and arming ourselves, God forbid, if the enemy will show up, we’ll start to look at each other and try our weapons, whether they work or not.
So this might be a room for reflection. But all this being said, after the speaking, there is a doing, always with Europe, whatever it takes.
Stjepan Oresković: Thank you, Edi Rama. Never disappointing.
